"A military thunderstorm approached the city with such speed that we could really oppose the enemy with only the 10th division of the NKVD troops under the command of Colonel Saraev."
Colonel Alexander Saraev, commander of the 10th rifle division of the internal troops of the NKVD of the USSR
The troops of the NKVD of the USSR were under the operational subordination of ten main directorates of the People's Commissariat and included border, operational (internal), convoy, security, railroad and some others. The most numerous were the border troops, numbering on June 22, 1941, 167,582 people.
Since at the end of 1940, foreign intelligence (the 5th department of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR) announced the signing of Directive No. 21 "Barbarossa Option" by Hitler on December 18, 1940, People's Commissar Lavrenty Beria took the necessary measures to transform the NKVD troops into special elite units in case of war … So, on February 28, 1941, operational troops were allocated from the border troops, which included one division (OMSDON named after Dzerzhinsky), 17 separate regiments (including 13 motorized rifle regiments), four battalions and one company. Their number on June 22 was 41,589 people.
At one time, even before joining the border troops, the task of the operational troops was to combat banditry - to detect, block, pursue and destroy bandit formations. And now they were intended to strengthen the border units in the course of hostilities on the border. The operational troops were armed with BT-7 tanks, heavy guns (up to 152 mm) and mortars (up to 120 mm).
“The border troops entered the battle first, not a single border unit withdrew,” writes Sergo Beria. - On the western border, these units held back the enemy from 8 to 16 hours, in the south - up to two weeks. Here is not only courage and heroism, but also the level of military training. And the question itself disappears, why the border guards at the outposts of artillery. Howitzers, as they say, were not there, but the outposts had anti-tank guns. Before the war, my father insisted on this, knowing full well that with a rifle at the ready you will not go to a tank. And howitzer regiments were attached to border detachments. And this also played a positive role in the first battles. The army artillery, unfortunately, did not work …”.
By Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 1756-762ss of June 25, 1941, the troops of the NKVD of the USSR were entrusted with the protection of the rear of the active Red Army. In addition, Stalin viewed the fighters in green and cornflower-blue caps as the last reserve, which was sent to the most threatened sectors of the front. Therefore, the formation of new motorized rifle divisions of the NKVD began, the backbone of which was made up of border guards.
So, in the order of Beria dated June 29, 1941 it says:
“For the formation of the above-mentioned divisions, to allocate from the personnel of the NKVD troops 1000 people of private and junior command personnel and 500 people of commanding personnel for each division. For the rest of the composition, submit applications to the General Staff of the Red Army for the conscription of all categories of servicemen from the reserve."
Nevertheless, the total number of the NKVD troops during the war did not exceed 5-7% of the total number of the Soviet armed forces.
Submachine gunner of the 272nd regiment of the 10th division of the NKVD of the USSR Alexey Vashchenko
Four divisions, two brigades, separate regiments and a number of other units of the NKVD troops took part in the defense of Moscow. The NKVD troops also fought desperately near Leningrad, defending the city and protecting communications. The Chekists fought to the death, never surrendering to the enemy and not retreating without an order.
After the defeat of the German troops near Moscow and the transition of the Red Army to the offensive by the decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR No. 1092ss of January 4, 1942, garrisons from the personnel of the internal troops of the NKVD were deployed in the cities liberated by the Red Army, which were assigned the following tasks:
- carrying out garrison (guard) service in the liberated cities;
- rendering assistance to the NKVD authorities in identifying and seizing enemy agents, former fascist accomplices;
- elimination of airborne troops, sabotage and reconnaissance groups of the enemy, bandit formations;
- maintaining public order in the liberated territories.
It was assumed that the Red Army would continue its successful offensive, so 10 rifle divisions, three separate motorized rifle and one rifle regiments were formed as part of the internal troops of the NKVD to carry out the assigned tasks.
The 10th Rifle Division of the NKVD of the USSR was formed on February 1, 1942 on the basis of the order of the NKVD of the USSR No. 0021 dated January 5, 1942. The divisional directorate, as well as the 269th and 270th rifle regiments of the internal troops of the NKVD of the USSR, were created in Stalingrad in accordance with the mobilization plan of the UNKVD apparatus for the Stalingrad region.
In this regard, a large group of employees of local divisions of the internal affairs and state security bodies was sent to the ranks of their personnel as a marching replenishment. The 271st, 272nd and 273rd rifle regiments arrived from Siberia: respectively, from Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk. In the first half of August, the 282nd Rifle Regiment arrived, formed in Saratov, which replaced the outgoing 273rd Regiment.
According to the state, all regiments consisted of three rifle battalions, a four-gun battery of 45-mm anti-tank guns, a mortar company (four 82-mm and eight 50-mm mortars) and a company of machine gunners. In turn, each rifle battalion included three rifle companies and a machine-gun platoon armed with four Maxim machine guns. The total strength of the division on August 10, 1942 was 7,568 bayonets.
In the period from March 17 to 22, 1942, the 269th, 271st and 272nd regiments took part in a large-scale preventive operation carried out in Stalingrad under the general leadership of the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, State Security Commissioner of the 3rd rank Ivan Serov … In fact, a thorough cleaning of the city from the "criminal element" was carried out. At the same time, 187 deserters, 106 criminals and 9 spies were identified.
After a successful counteroffensive near Moscow, the Soviet high command found it possible to continue offensive operations in other sectors of the front, in particular, near Kharkov by the forces of the Bryansk, Southwestern and Southern fronts under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko, chief of staff - Lieutenant General Ivan Baghramyan, member of the Military Council - Nikita Khrushchev. On the German side, they were opposed by the forces of Army Group South, consisting of: 6th Army (Friedrich Paulus), 17th Army (Hermann Goth) and 1st Panzer Army (Ewald von Kleist) under the general command of Field Marshal Fyodor von Boca.
The Kharkov operation began on May 12, 1942. The general task of the advancing Soviet troops was to encircle Paulus' 6th Army in the Kharkov region, which would later have made it possible to cut off Army Group South, push it to the Sea of Azov and destroy it. However, on May 17, Kleist's 1st Panzer Army struck in the rear of the advancing units of the Red Army, broke through the defenses of the 9th Army of the Southern Front and by May 23 cut off the Soviet troops' escape routes to the east.
The chief of the General Staff, Colonel-General Alexander Vasilevsky, proposed to stop the offensive and withdraw the troops, but Timoshenko and Khrushchev reported that the threat from the southern group of the Wehrmacht was exaggerated. As a result, by May 26, the encircled units of the Red Army were locked up in a small area of 15 km2 in the Barvenkovo area.
Soviet losses amounted to 270 thousand.people and 1240 tanks (according to German data, only 240 thousand people were captured). Killed or missing: Deputy Commander of the Southwestern Front Lieutenant General Fyodor Kostenko, Commander of the 6th Army Lieutenant General Avksentiy Gorodnyansky, Commander of the 57th Army Lieutenant General Kuzma Podlas, Commander of the Army Group Major General Leonid Bobkin and a number generals who commanded the encircled divisions. The Germans lost 5 thousand killed and about 20 thousand wounded.
Due to the catastrophe near Kharkov, the rapid advance of the Germans to Voronezh and Rostov-on-Don became possible, followed by an exit to the Volga and the Caucasus (Operation Fall Blau). On July 7, the Germans occupied the right bank of Voronezh. Gotha's 4th Panzer Army turned south and swiftly moved to Rostov between the Donets and Don, crushing the retreating units of Marshal Timoshenko's Southwestern Front along the way. Soviet troops in the vast desert steppes were able to oppose only weak resistance, and then they began to flock to the east in complete disarray. In mid-July, several divisions of the Red Army fell into a cauldron in the Millerovo area. The number of prisoners during this period is estimated at between 100 and 200 thousand.
On July 12, the Stalingrad Front was created (commander - Marshal S. K. Timoshenko, member of the Military Council - NS Khrushchev). It included the garrison of Stalingrad (10th division of the NKVD), the 62nd, 63rd, 64th armies, formed on July 10, 1942 on the basis of the 7th, 5th and 1st reserve armies, respectively, and a number of others formations from the Army Group of the Reserve of the Supreme Command, as well as the Volga Flotilla. The front received the task of stopping the enemy, preventing him from reaching the Volga, and firmly defending the line along the Don River.
On July 17, the vanguards of Paulus's 6th Army reached the advance detachments of the 62nd and 64th armies. The Battle of Stalingrad began. By the end of July, the Germans pushed the Soviet troops back across the Don. On July 23, Rostov-on-Don fell, and the 4th Panzer Army of Hoth turned north, and the 6th Army of Paulus was already several tens of kilometers from Stalingrad. On the same day, Marshal Timoshenko was removed from the command of the Stalingrad Front. On July 28, Stalin signed the famous order No. 227 "Not a step back!"
On August 22, Paulus's 6th Army crossed the Don and captured a 45 km wide bridgehead on its eastern bank. On August 23, the 14th Panzer Corps of the Germans broke through to the Volga north of Stalingrad, near the village of Rynok, and cut off the 62nd Army from the rest of the forces of the Stalingrad Front, chaining it to the river like a steel horseshoe. Enemy aircraft launched a massive air strike against Stalingrad, as a result of which entire neighborhoods were reduced to ruins. A huge fiery whirlwind formed, which burned to ashes the central part of the city and all its inhabitants.
The first secretary of the Stalingrad regional party committee, Alexei Chuyanov, recalled:
"A military thunderstorm approached the city with such speed that we could really oppose the enemy with only the 10th division of the NKVD troops under the command of Colonel Saraev." According to the recollections of Alexander Sarayev himself, “the soldiers of the division carried out security services at the entrances to the city, on the Volga crossings, and patrolled the streets of Stalingrad. Much attention was paid to combat training. We have set ourselves the task of preparing the division's fighters in a short time to fight a strong, technically equipped enemy."
The division stretched out for 50 km and took up defenses along the city bypass of the fortifications.
The first battle with the enemy took place on August 23 in the northern part of the city near the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, where the 282nd Infantry Regiment of the 10th Division of the NKVD of the USSR (commander - Major Mitrofan Grushchenko) blocked the way for the Germans, with the support of a fighter detachment of Stalingrad workers, among whom were participants defense of Tsaritsyn. At the same time, tanks continued to be built at the tractor plant, which were staffed with crews of plant workers, and immediately sent off the assembly lines into battle.
Among the heroes of the first battles is the chief of staff of the regiment, Captain Nikolai Belov:
“In the course of organizing the defense by the regiment's subunits, he was wounded, lost his sight, but did not leave the battlefield, continued to manage the regiment's combat operations” (TsAMO: f. 33, op. 682525, d. 172, l. 225).
As of October 16, in the regiment, which by that time had fought surrounded, there were fewer platoons left in the ranks - only 27 security officers.
The most famous, the 272nd Infantry Regiment of the 10th Division of the NKVD of the USSR, which later received the honorary military name "Volzhsky", commanded by Major Grigory Savchuk, by August 24, with its main forces dug in at the line Experimental Station - height 146, 1. September 4, large a group of enemy machine gunners managed to break through to the regiment's command post and take it into the ring.
The situation was saved by battalion commissar Ivan Shcherbina, who raised the staff workers with bayonets as a military commissar of the regiment. He, in the ensuing hand-to-hand combat, personally destroyed three Germans, the rest fled. The Nazis' plans to break through to the city center and capture the main city ferry across the Volga were thwarted.
Battalion commissar Ivan Shcherbina, military commissar of the 272nd regiment of the 10th division of the NKVD of the USSR
The name of the submachine gunner of the 272nd regiment Alexei Vashchenko is inscribed in gold letters in the chronicle of the Battle of Stalingrad: September 5, 1942, during the assault on height 146, 1 with a shout “For the Motherland! For Stalin! he closed the embrasure of the bunker with his body. By order for the troops of the Stalingrad Front No. 60 / n dated October 25, 1942, he was posthumously awarded the Order of Lenin. Today one of the streets of Volgograd bears the name of the hero.
In a fierce battle at the Experimental Station against our battalion, the Germans threw 37 tanks. From the fire of anti-tank rifles, grenades and a combustible mixture of the "KS" six of them burst into flames, but the rest broke into the location of our defenses. At a critical moment, the junior political instructor, assistant for Komsomol work in the regiment, Dmitry Yakovlev, threw himself under a tank with two anti-tank grenades and blew himself up along with an enemy vehicle.
The 269th Infantry Regiment of the 10th Division of the NKVD of the USSR under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Kapranov in the period from July 1 to August 23 ensured law and order in Stalingrad and the suburban settlements of Kotluban, Gumrak, Orlovka, Dubovka and Gorodishche, as well as in places of crossings across the Sukhaya River Mosque. During this period, 2,733 people were detained, including 1,812 military personnel and 921 civilians.
On August 23, 1942, the regiment urgently took up defenses in the area of height 102, 0 (aka Mamayev Kurgan). On September 7, at 5:00, a massive German offensive against Stalingrad began from the Gumrak - Razgulyaevka line: until 11:00 - artillery preparation and incessant bombing, while bombers entered the target in echelons of 30-40 aircraft. And at 11:00 the enemy infantry rose to attack. The 112th Infantry Division, which was defended in front of the cornflower caps, wavered, and the Red Army men “in panic, dropping their weapons, fled from their defensive lines in the direction of the city” (RGVA: f. 38759, op. 2, d. 1, sheet 54ob).
To stop this unorganized retreat, the 1st and 3rd battalions of the 269th regiment of the 10th division of the NKVD of the USSR had to temporarily leave the trenches under exploding bombs and shells and line up face to face with the fleeing human line. As a result, about nine hundred servicemen of the Red Army, including a significant number of officers, were stopped and again cobbled together into units.
On September 12, the 10th division of the NKVD of the USSR entered the operational subordination of the 62nd army (commander - Lieutenant General Vasily Chuikov). On September 14, at 6:00, the Nazis from the line of the Historical Wall stabbed the heart of the city - its central part with a group of the tallest stone buildings, dominating next to them with a height of 102, 0 (Mamayev Kurgan) and the main crossing over the Volga.
Particularly strong battles unfolded for the Mamayev Kurgan and in the area of the Tsaritsa River. This time, the main blow of 50 tanks fell on the junction between the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 269th regiment. At 14:00, two battalions of enemy machine gunners with three tanks went to the rear of the regiment and occupied the top of the Mamayev Kurgan, opening fire on the village of the Krasny Oktyabr plant.
To regain the height, a company of machine gunners of the 269th regiment of junior lieutenant Nikolai Lyubezny and the 416th rifle regiment of the 112th rifle division with two tanks went into a counterattack. By 6:00 pm, the height was cleared. The defense on it was occupied by the 416th regiment and partly by the units of the Chekists. In two days of fighting, the 269th regiment of the 10th division of the NKVD of the USSR destroyed more than one and a half thousand soldiers and officers, knocked out and burned about 20 enemy tanks.
Meanwhile, separate groups of German machine gunners penetrated the city center, intense battles were going on at the station. Having created strong points in the building of the State Bank, in the House of Specialists and a number of others, on the upper floors of which fire spotters sat down, the Germans took under fire the central crossing over the Volga. They managed to come very close to the landing site of Major General Alexander Rodimtsev's 13th Guards Division. As Alexander Ilyich himself wrote, “it was a critical moment when the fate of the battle was being decided, when one extra pellet could tug the scales of the enemy. But he did not have this pellet, but Chuikov had it."
On a narrow strip of coast from the House of Specialists to the complex of buildings of the NKVD, the crossing was defended by a consolidated detachment of the 10th division of the NKVD of the USSR under the command of the head of the NKVD department, captain of state security Ivan Petrakov, who, in essence, saved Stalingrad at the decisive moment of the battle. A total of 90 people - two incomplete platoons of soldiers of the 10th NKVD division, employees of the regional NKVD Directorate, city militiamen and five firefighters repelled the attacks of the 1st battalion of the 194th infantry regiment of the 71st rifle division of the 6th army of the Wehrmacht. In the official history, it sounds like this: "We ensured the crossing of the units of the 13th Guards Division …".
This means that at the last moment, at the last frontier, 90 Chekists stopped an entire army that captured all of Europe …
At the same time, despite the overwhelming advantage of the Germans, a detachment of Chekists goes on the attack in the area of the brewery, repels two of our guns, previously captured by the Germans, and begins to beat them at the State Bank building, from the upper floors of which the Germans are adjusting the shelling of the pier and the central ferry. To the aid of the Chekists, Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov throws his last reserve, a group of three T-34 tanks under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Matvey Weinrub, with the task of attacking high buildings on the embankment captured by the Germans.
At this time, on the left bank of the Volga, the deputy commander of the front, Lieutenant General Philip Golikov, approached Rodimtsev, who was tasked to ferry the 13th Guards Division to Stalingrad.
- Do you see that bank, Rodimtsev?
- I see. It seems to me that the enemy approached the river.
- It does not seem, but it is so. So make a decision - both for yourself and for me.
At this moment, a German mine hits a barge standing next to it. Screams are heard, something heavy flops into the water, and feed flares up like a huge torch.
- And what will I provide for the crossing? - says Golikov bitterly. - Artillery brought in all kinds of artillery, up to the main caliber. But who to shoot? Where is the German? Where is the cutting edge? In the city there is one bloodless division of Colonel Saraev (10th division of the NKVD) and thinned out detachments of the people's militia. That's the whole sixty-second army. There are only pockets of resistance. There are joints, but what the hell are joints there - holes between units of several hundred meters. And Chuikov has nothing to patch them with …
On the opposite bank, the defense at the line: a cemetery with its surroundings, the village of Dar Gora - the NKVD House - the central part of the city - is occupied by units of the 270th regiment of the 10th NKVD division under the command of Major Anatoly Zhuravlev. From July 25 to September 1, they served as an obstacle in the operational rear of the 64th Army and then were transferred to Stalingrad. On September 15, at 17:00, the Germans struck at them two simultaneous strikes - in the forehead and bypass - from the side of the House of the NKVD.
At the same time, the 2nd battalion was attacked in the back by ten tanks. Two of them were set on fire, but the remaining eight vehicles were able to break through to the position of the 5th company, where up to two platoons of personnel were buried alive in trenches with caterpillars. In the twilight at the command post of the 2nd battalion, only ten miraculously survived in that terrible meat grinder of the Chekists of the 5th company managed to gather.
The chief of staff of the regiment, Captain Vasily Chuchin, was seriously wounded, who suffered from the local use of chemical warfare agents by the enemy. By his order of September 20, the commander of the 10th division of the NKVD of the USSR, Colonel Alexander Saraev, poured the remnants of the 270th regiment into the 272nd regiment. A total of 109 people were transferred there with two "magpie" cannons and three 82-mm mortars …
The 271st Infantry Regiment of the 10th Division of the NKVD of the USSR, commanded by Major Alexei Kostinitsyn, took up defensive positions along the southern outskirts of Stalingrad. On September 8, after a massive air raid, enemy infantry moved on it. On September 12 and 13, the regiment fought in a semi-ring, and from September 15 for almost two days - in an encirclement ring. The battles these days were going on along the Volga, on a patch within the boundaries of an elevator - a railway crossing - a cannery.
This forced the staff workers to be thrown into battle. The hero of those days was the clerk of the political unit of the regiment, sergeant of state security Sukhorukov: on September 16, during an attack with fire from a machine gun, he destroyed six fascists, and then three more in hand-to-hand combat. In total, he recorded seventeen killed enemy soldiers and officers to his personal account in the September battles!
Soldiers of the 271st regiment of the 10th division of the NKVD of the USSR on the construction of a command post on the Tsaritsa river
At the same time, the 272nd "Volzhsky" regiment dugs in at the turn of the station Stalingrad-1 - the railway bridge across the Tsaritsa River. On September 19, the commander of the regiment, Major Grigory Savchuk, is wounded, and the commander of the regiment is the battalion commissar Ivan Shcherbina. Having located the command post of the regiment headquarters in the bunker of the former command post of the city Defense Committee in the Komsomolsk Garden, Ivan Mefodievich writes his famous note, which is now kept in the Museum of Border Troops in Moscow:
Hello friends. I beat the Germans, surrounded by a circle. Not a step back is my duty and my nature …
My regiment did not disgrace and will not disgrace Soviet weapons …
Comrade Kuznetsov, if I am lost, my only request is my family. Another sadness of mine - I should have given the bastards in the teeth, i.e. I regret that I died early and personally killed only 85 of the fascists.
For the Soviet Motherland, guys, beat your enemies !!!"
On September 25, enemy tanks took the command post in a ring and began to shoot it point-blank from tower guns. In addition, chemical warfare agents were used against the defenders. After several hours of being under siege, I. M. Shcherbina led the surviving staff workers and 27 staff guards to a breakthrough. They pierced their way with bayonets. Unfortunately, the brave commissar died a heroic death in that unequal battle: enemy bullets mortally wounded him at the Gorky Theater …
Monument to the Chekists on the right bank of the Tsaritsa River in Volgograd
During September 26, the remnants of the regiment, in the amount of 16 fighters under the command of the junior political instructor Rakov, until the evening staunchly kept in a semi-encirclement on the banks of the Volga, while the fragments of two neighboring separate rifle brigades of the Red Army defeated by the enemy, fleeing shamefully, were hastily ferried to the left bank. And a handful of brave Chekist warriors destroyed up to a company of the Nazis and destroyed two enemy machine guns.
The main task - to hold the city until the arrival of fresh reserves of the 62nd army - the 10th rifle division of the NKVD troops of the USSR fulfilled with flying colors. Of the 7,568 fighters who entered the battle on August 23, 1942, about 200 people survived. On October 26, 1942, the last on the left bank of the Volga was the administration of the 282nd regiment, which defended Hill 135, 4 near the tractor plant. However, in burning Stalingrad, the combined regiment company of 25 bayonets, formed from the remnants of the combined battalion, remained to fight. The last soldier of this company was out of action due to injury on November 7, 1942.
The 10th Rifle Division of the Internal Troops of the NKVD of the USSR is the only one of all the formations that participated in the Battle of Stalingrad, which was awarded the Order of Lenin on December 2, 1942. Hundreds of division fighters were awarded orders and medals.20 security officers of the division were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, five people became holders of the Orders of Glory of all three degrees.
On December 28, 1947, a monument to the Chekists was unveiled in Stalingrad, on the right bank of the Tsaritsa River. Around the monument there is a Chekist square with a small park area. There are stairs from four sides leading to the monument. A majestic five-meter bronze figure of a Chekist soldier rises on a seventeen-meter architecturally decorated pedestal in the form of an obelisk. The Chekist holds a naked sword in his hand.
